Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
