Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
