Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting 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 flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
