Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath 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 financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
