Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing 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 states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
