🔗 Share this article

Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, 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 prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the