Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
