Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
