Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
