Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, 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 origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
