Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
