Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
