Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
