Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
