Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
