Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
