Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
