Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
