Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
