Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
