Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
