Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
