Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
