Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
