Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
