Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
