Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – 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 governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
