Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
