Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
