Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
