Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
