Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
