Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
