Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
