Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
