Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
