Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
