Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma 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 actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
