Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
