Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, 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 original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
