Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
