Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
