Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. One such window appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
