Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
