Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
