Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
