Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
