Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
