Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
