Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
