Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
