Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
