Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden 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 governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
