Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
