Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar 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 states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – 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 destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
