Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
