Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the