Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to 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 determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
