Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
