Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
