Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel 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". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars 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 baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
