Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
