Tings are falling apart in the final volume 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 charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
