Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
