Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
