Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
