Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
