Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
