Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
