Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
