Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
