Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – 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 search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
