Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
