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 seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
