Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, 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 origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
