Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
