Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the