Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
