Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
