Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled 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, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
