Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
