Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
