Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
