Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
