Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
