Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
