Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
