Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
