Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
