Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
