Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
