Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. 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 appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
