Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
