Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel 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". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
