Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
