Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
