Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, 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 our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
