Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the