Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
