Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
