Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
