Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
