Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
