Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
