Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
