Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
