Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
