Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
