Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
