Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
