Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
