Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
