Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
