Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
