Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the