Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
