Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
