Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
