Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
