Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
