Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
