Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
