Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
