Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
