Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
