Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
