Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
