Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
