Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the