Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
