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 manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
