Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
