Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
