Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
