Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
