Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again 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 persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
