Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
