Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
