Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
