Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
