Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
