Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
