Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
