Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
