Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
