Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
