Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
