Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
