Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
