Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
