Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
