Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited 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 tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
