Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
