Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
