Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
