Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
