Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
