Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old 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 the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults 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 dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
