Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar 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 puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
