Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
