Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
