Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
