Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
