Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
