Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
