Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
