Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
