Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
