Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
