Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
