Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the