Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
