Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
