Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
