Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
