Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
