🔗 Share this article

Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the