Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next 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. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to lead to other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
