Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
