Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
