Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
