Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the