Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
