Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen 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 vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
