Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain 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 joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
