Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
