Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
