Tings 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 tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
