Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
