Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
