Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
