Tings 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, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
