Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
