Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
