Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
