Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
