Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
