Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
