Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
