Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
