Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
