Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
