Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods 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 infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
