Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
