Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
