Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
