Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author'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 reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
