Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
