Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
