Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
