Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
