Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
