Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
