Things are falling apart 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 energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
