Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
