Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
