Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the world's sky: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
