Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
