Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – 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 authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
