Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
