Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
