Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
