Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
