Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
