Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
