Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
