Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
