Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried 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 espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
