Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
