Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
