Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
