Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
