Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
