Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
