Please note that there might be SPOILERS below.
I just finished The Rose Field, which is the final instalment of The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman. It follows the initial trilogy His Dark Materials which started 30 years ago.
I have to start off by saying I absolutely adore His Dark Materials. Amazing world building, great writing, great story, great ending. There were lots of emotions, I cried a lot reading it as a kid, and it is a beloved story for many.
The Book of Dust has not managed to hit the same high notes. The first book (La Belle Sauvage) just seemed… dull? It was quite a few years ago now, but I recall feeling it was a short story dragged over 500 pages. The second book (The Secret Commonwealth) was very confusing. I struggled to understand what was happening and why. The premise of the story (which kicks off the events of the 2 final books) was… odd? Difficult to comprehend in terms of motivations for the characters.
Now the final book started off a bit better. It felt like things were moving forward, multiple arcs happening in parallel, things were getting exciting, though it sometimes felt some were irrelevant (if you'd cut them out completely, nothing would change). But overall, it felt like things were rising to a climax.
And then it just… ended. A number of arcs, hints and mentions just get trashed (eg. the setup for Mustafa Bey's successor that goes nowhere; whatever Abdel Ionides and Leila did in the red building; Lyra's evil grandmother who, let’s remember, is the reason why Delamare wants to capture Lyra, never makes an appearance; Oakly Street and Alice just get forgotten; no explanation for whatever happened to Brande and his daemon who persists after the death of his person; the developing mutiny around Delamare; … ). The author keeps mentioning Will (from the first trilogy) and there is hope that maybe we get a nice nudge in the nostalgia feelings by seeing him again, but no, nothing. We suddenly learn that Lyra is related to ALL the antagonists… and nothing develops from it. It doesn't even affect the plot in the slightest, apart from raise awkward questions about Mrs Coulter. The Magisterium brings their huge army… for what again? Then Delamare dies rather blandly as soon as things get interesting. We get constantly told that Malcolm and Lyra have feelings for each other, but he basically gets told to go back to Alice in the last couple of pages. Alice seems to have an absolutely meaningless arc in this final book which never really intersects with the main plot. And finally, the antagonist who has been hunting Lyra incessantly for 2 books just sits down with her for a chat without so much as an acknowledgement of their history. I mean, what happened here?!
And then there is the issues with the meaning of the book. It all kicks off because Pan goes searching for Lyra's imagination. Did they ever find it? I'm not actually sure. What was the Secret Commonwealth vs. Dust vs. the Rose Field? Also not entirely sure. What happened to the Magisterium? As far as I can tell, nothing, they are still hanging around in the desert. On top of this, we get a shallow dose of morality in the form of "money is bad, kids" randomly thrown in our faces at the very end (with semi-dead daemons, no less). And nothing gets fixed as far as I can tell – corporations will continue the exploitation of the roses, and trade the oil. Loose ends remain loose, and nothing gets tied up at all. Whereas His Dark Materials neatly brought everything together for a satisfying ending, I’m not even sure there was an attempt to do so here.
In a sentence: There was this whole build-up of cool events aiming for a promising climax, and the whole thing just fizzles out before anything even happens. Very disappointing.
The whole premise of the last 2 books is that Lyra has lost her imagination . It really feels like the author may have been projecting there.
by Cell_Division