Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
