Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
