Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting 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 ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
