🔗 Share this article

Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, 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 ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the