Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
