Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, 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 previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
