Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
