Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
