Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
