Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
