Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
