Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
