Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
