Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
