Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
