Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
