Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
