Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
