Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
