Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
