Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
