Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
