Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
