Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
