Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
