Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new 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 shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty 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 valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that seem to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
