Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
