Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
