Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
