Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
