Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
