Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
