Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma 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 The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
