Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
