Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
