Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
