Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
