Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
