Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect 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 adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
