🔗 Share this article

Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the