Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
