Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
