Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
