Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
