Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
