Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
