Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
