Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
