Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
