Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds 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 animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
