Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to 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 this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
