Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
