Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
