Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
