Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
