Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
