Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar 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 states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars 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 toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
