Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
