Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – 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 destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
