Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places 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 botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
