Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle 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 left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
