Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling 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 draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
