Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
