Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
