Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
