Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
