Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
