Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
