Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
