Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such window appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
