Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
