Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
