Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
