Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, 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 search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
