Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense 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"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
