Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
