Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
