Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
