Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met 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 clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
