Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
