Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
