Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger 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 Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
