Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
