Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
