Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea 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 baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
