Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
