Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
