Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
