Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
