Field of Roses: Pullman's Gripping Finale to the Northern Lights Series
Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader 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 weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
