Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
