Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
