Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
