Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
