Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
