Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
