Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
