Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
