Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
