Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
