Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
