Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
