Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
