Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
