Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the