Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that look to lead to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
