Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, 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.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
