Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
