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 intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
