Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
