Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
