Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
