Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
