Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
