Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
