Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
