Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
