Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics 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 baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
