Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
