Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
