Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
