Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the point 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 endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
