Tings are falling apart in the last installment 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 tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
