Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
