Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
