Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
