Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
