Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
