Things 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, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
