Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
