Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
