Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar 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 draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
