Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
