Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
