Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
