Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
