Things 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, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
