Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon 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 quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
