Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
