Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
