Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the world's air: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
