Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel 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 governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
