Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
