Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
