Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
