Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again 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 determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
