Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
