Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
