Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
