Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis 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 extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
