Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
