Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
