Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
