Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
