Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
