Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
