Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split 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 pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
