Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
