Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
