Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling 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 draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene 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
