Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
