Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar 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". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
