Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
