Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 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 history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
