Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
