Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
