Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
