Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
