Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
