Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
