Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
