Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
