Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the