Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting 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 draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to open into other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
