Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
