Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
