Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
