Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
