Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
