Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
