Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
