Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
