Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
