Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
