Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
