Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger 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 evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the