Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
