Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline 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 costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
