Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
