Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – 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 quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
