Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
