Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, 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 Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
