Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
