Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
