Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
