Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
