Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
