Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
