Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
