Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
