Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
