Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
