Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, 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 introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
