Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security 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 the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
