Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
