Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
