Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial 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 disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
