Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a series of strange openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
