Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
