Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
