Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
