Things 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 appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
