Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
