Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
