Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
