Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged 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"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
