Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – 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 stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
