Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
