Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
