Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
