Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
