Things 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 energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
