Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
