Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
