Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
