Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
