Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired 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 tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
