Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, 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 pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the