Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
