Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
