Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
