Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
