Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
