Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
