Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart 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 reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
