Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
