Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
