Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new 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 states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
