🔗 Share this article

Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the