Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
