Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
