Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with 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 paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
