Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
