Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
