Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
