Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
