Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
