Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
