Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
