Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – 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 eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
