Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
