Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
