Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
