Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
