Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
