Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain 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 paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
