Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
