Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden 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 authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
