Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
