Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
