Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
