Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
