Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the