Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older professors 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 the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
