Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
