Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
