Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the