Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
