Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
