Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
