Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
