Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
