Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
