Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
