Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
