Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
