🔗 Share this article

Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the